Mastercard and Coinbase in bidding war for stablecoin firm BVNK

Editorial

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community.

Citing six sources, Fortune says that Coinbase “appears to have the inside track over Mastercard,” while stressing that the “advanced talks” may not result in a deal.

Just this week, London-based BVNK secured a strategic investment from Citi while Mastercard rival Visa has also pumped money into the stablecoin player this year.

Stablecoin adoption is exploding, with $27 trillion in total transaction volume globally across 1.25 billion transactions in 2024, according to Visa analysis.

Early this year, another stablecoin platform Bridge was bought by payments giant Stripe in a deal worth around $1.1 billion.

As a licensed electronic money institution in the UK and Europe, BVNK provides named IBANs for EUR and GBP, and access to UK and Europe’s payment schemes including Sepa, Sepa Instant and Faster Payments, so merchants can send and receive payments to suppliers and partners.

The firm processes over $20 billion annually for global enterprises and payment service providers including Worldpay, Flywire, and dLocal.